Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/384

Since the termination of the war a number of import and export firms, both professional and amateur, have sprung up. It is as a season for mushrooms, when, after a heavy night rain the morning finds the woods literally filled with these fungi. The currents of international commerce, at the present day, flow through the most treacherous channels known to economic history. Over night, depending on the rise or fall of exchange, fortunes are made and lost. The most cautious importers and exporters buy merely that which they absolutely need to satisfy their immediate trade.

It is very inexpensive to form a commercial corporation dealing in foreign goods, but it is difficult and requires much hard work to make it a paying proposition. There are many successful importing and exporting concerns doing business with Czechoslovakia and by the very conduct of their business promote the good feeling between America and Czechoslovakia, but those who are inexperienced in these matters inflict more injury than can be repaired by others in many years. It is not necessary that the concern be large to do a profitable business, even a firm of small resources can do much to promote Czechoslovak business welfare in this country.

The world is groping for second sight men men who will lead the people to tranquility, economic prosperity and liberty. The wisest people today can’t see far ahead, for the future is obscured by a vail of mist. Hence caution is necessary.

It is hoped that the consummation of an enterte between Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Jugo-Slavia will tend to bring something like order out of the chaos of Central Europe. These three Powers will act in concert not only for the preservation of peace but for the rehabilitation of the economic system so completely shattered by the war.

The prime motive of the entente, however, is clearly the community of interest in curbing the growing military strength of Hungary. As constituted at present each of the three Powers embraces in its boundaries large areas which formerly were under the jurisdiction of the Government at Budapest, and they are conscious that Magyar pride will not submit tamely to their permanent alienation. And so, just as Greece, Rumania and Jugo-Slavia are at one in the purpose to retain their recent gains at the expense of Bulgaria, the new entente which almost encircles Hungary will force upon that nation obedience to the treaty of peace.

Unfortunately, these Powers are badly situated for the restoration of economic activitty in Central Europe. For this they must appeal to Hungary itself, as before the war Budapest was the trade centre of the entire region, and from it radiate the railway systems which link the new allies one with the other. The coal, iron, linen, glass and woolens of Bohemia can be exchanged for the Serbian meats or Rumanian oil and grain only by passing through Hungary or by taking expensive and roundabout routes.

It is sincerely to be hoped that the nations of Central Europe will once and for all abandon aggressive intent against each other, that they will accept in good faith the outcome of the war and seek to find happiness and prosperity in the new order of affairs. They are sorely in need of peace and recuperation. Much can be accomplished by cooperation and good will; the nursing of old hatreds and ambitions can but lead to new disasters and sufferings.—The (N. Y.) Eve. Sun.

Hidden away in a tiny top flat in an apartment house in Žižkov is a painter who is expected to soar into prominence within the next year as the successor of Gauguin, who paved his way to fame with his paintings of native life in Tahiti.

The well known British artist C. W. R. Nevinson, who has just visited his studio, declares him to be the greatest art discovery of recent years in Europe and looks for a wide vogue for the paintings which Jaroslav Hneškovsky has brought back with him from the jungles of India. For Hneškovsky has lived for five years as a native among the vedas of India and has brought back a startling series of paintings which strike a new note in contemporary European art.

He is a Czech who returned from India in 1914, just before the war broke out, and who devoted himself to painting from material which he collected in India throughout the period of the war, preventing himself from being conscripted by the hated Austrian rulers of Prague by starving himself fourteen times.

“I took the advice of my brother, who is a doctor,” he told the writer, “and starved myself scientifically, so that I would not be able to pass the Austrian military doctor. Usually I weighed about 170 pounds, but I succeeded in starving myself down to 125 pounds and succeeded in hiding the fact from the Austrians by taking a glass of brandy about ten minutes before I was to be examined.”